Our community investment projects are an essential part of our work with our neighbours. We focus on three global strategic investment themes where we have business expertise and form partnerships. The themes are enterprise development, road safety and access to energy. In 2013, we spent almost $159 million on community investment projects around the world.
Our LiveWIRE programme supports our enterprise development theme, encouraging thousands of young people to build a business of their own that has a strong community or environmental benefit. Hosted around the world, the programme awards promising new entrepreneurs with expert advice or funding from Shell to launch and grow their business.
As part of our second strategic theme, we are a lead partner in the Global Road Safety Partnership (see “Road safety”), a global alliance that educates young people on road safety. In support of our third strategic theme, we are the single-largest private sector contributor to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, helping homes to change to using clean and efficient stoves and fuels.
We often work in local partnerships with other parties, including non-governmental organisations and development agencies, to implement our programmes (see “Partners and collaboration”). Alongside our global strategic investment themes, we have locally tailored programmes in areas such as community development, education, and biodiversity and conservation. In 2013, we introduced a new measurement framework across all of our regions, which will help us in the longer term to measure and evaluate the impact of our community investment activities around the world.